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BUILD THREAD For 1964 Falcon Sprint to Monte Carlo Rallye FIA spec'

It all started looking at cool cars on the net, as you all do. and what caught my eye was this 1964 Falcon Sprint, first glance it looked pretty rough. But upon looking further it had very little rust, but the usual fair share of 50+ years of use, love and abuse.
So I bought it! .. Just like that.
I always liked the 63-64 muscle era, very raw and a very developing time for high performance cars.
These Falcons designed in the late 50s, the first 1960 Falcon rolled off the assembly line. in late 1959!
They were mass produced and were originally intended to have a 6 cylinder engine as a low cost entry for Mum Dad and the kids.
Things changed by 1964 and the big 3 (Ford, Mopar, GM) performance programs were in full swing. By then Ford had stuffed a 260ci V8 into the Falcon but the 64 Mercurys had 289s also and many with the 289 K hipo engine. There were also a lot of Fairlanes built with 289 K engines. Particularly in Canada where the right hand drive export cars came from, Many were 289K hipo engines and many came to NZ.

So in 1964, 8 Falcon Rallye Sprints were entered into the Monte Carlo Rally in full race trim courtesy of Holman Moody, who prepared 15 cars for Ford, 14 cars went to Alan Mann Racing in the UK to be further rally prepared, managed & raced at the Monte Carlo Rally. (H-M built 15 cars in total.)
1 Falcon was raced at Daytona together with the prototype 427 Fairlane in 1964. A number of 1964 cars including some Mercurys also went to compete in the East African rally. Ford offered a Regular Production Option (RPO) for the Falcon for 1964 to comply with the minimum of 1000 vehicles were produced.
At the same time in the USA Ford decided to stuff the 1964 Falcon with 425hp 427 Hi Riser big block and 4 speed and these were drag raced as AFX race cars and hugely competitive at the time for a 1250kg (2755lb) car, and very much lighter in drag trim.

To try to get the weight down close to the FIA 1250 homologated weight of 980kg, (they never got there but would have been best guess circa 1150kg) Holman Moody made a lot of changes for the 1964 Falcon Rallye Sprint for Monte Carlo Rallye: Fiberglass body panels, aluminum bumpers, 4 pot disc brakes, stiffer & lower suspension, adjustable koni shocks, quicker steering, close ratio T10 4 speed gearbox, Stump pulling 4.51 ratio 9 inch limited slip diff. The 289K engine was reworked with a twin 4 barrel Carter AFB Carburetors, 12.1 compression forged TRW Pistons (Fuel had lead in those days!) Modified heads, factory exhaust headers for better flow, 15 inch rims and skinny cross ply tyres!, The factory dual point distributors (Rare C2FF-12127 with locked Vac adv) were running 38 degrees of maximum advance and all this meant about 340hp+ for the competition engines at the time. A quick car for 1964. Holman Moody made many other modifications to make the car perform well, as well as Alan Mann Racing.

So with all that, I bought this old dead looking 1964 car back to my nice warm garage as a rolling car needing more than a bit of TLC.
I found out the car sat in the desert for years somewhere in California and lucky as it was well preserved with about 7kg of California desert and 3 mouse nests, a dozen spider webs (All dead after fumigation)and an ash tray full of US coins.
So I started to strip it and decided to do this build.
Here is a pic of the car on day 1

So, as you do when you strip car, photograph everything, and put each lot of parts in marked containers and box things like a door go all together, so a year or 2 down the track your grey hair (or the lack of it) does not get the better of you and you can figure out how it all goes back together.
RUST- who invented that, it is the most time consuming part of the rebuild apart from preparing for paint.
So before you start the steel repairs you need a Vernier Gauge and measure the thickness of the original steel to be sure you are replacing with the correct thickness these cars are mostly 1mm thick (with non chassis repairs).
Cut out the affected area and check what is left is thick enough to weld. Next make a paper pattern of the repair, place a sheet of paper over the cut out area and ensure it sits the same as the original steel sat. Then hold carefully in place and press-rub the paper around the outer edge cut you made all the way around. This will give you an exact pattern of the area you want to repair, cut it out exactly on the rub line. lay it on your new sheet steel and mark around with a ballpoint pen, then cut the steel slightly inside the line. this should almost fit, bend into shape and try to fit, use an angle grinder to trim small amounts off in order to press fit the new panel into place. when it press fits perfectly (if it's too small, throw it away an start again) and buts in place, then use welding magnets to hold in place, check that the shape is exactly the same as original, tack 1 corner at a time ensuring perfect flatness between old an new surfaces. Keep tacking in with your Mig or Tig then start welding 2 cm pieces at a time, stop quickly and hammer and dolly the weld, allow to cool and continue till finished. JOB DONE
If you have spot welds Google "Plug welding". IMPORTANT Measure the distance of the original spot welds and ensure the correct number and distance between each spot weld is placed as OEM build. Use an angle grinder to carefully flatten down the top plug weld, then use a grinding tip to very lightly plenish the area, Etch prime. The replacement plug weld is done, this will ensure the car is repaired as originally designed.
Repair to rear left floor, You can see 5 plug welds
Repair to left front floor, the plug welds have not yet been flattened or plenished
Replace right rear lower fender and under water drainage panels, had to hand make these.

Awesome thread Paul, I'm really looking forward to this one, and seeing your car come to life. I've had a long interest in the FIA Appendix K Falcon Sprints, ever since I lived in the UK in the early 1990s and saw them racing at a historic event at Silverstone.

Classic & Sportscar magazine writer Julian Balme has owned an FIA Falcon Sprint for many, many years. I saw the car at Silverstone in 1994, and even then he'd owned it for a long time. He writes updates about the car in the 'Our Classics' section of the mag which I always find interesting.

The FIA granted these cars an amazing 980kg racing weight for the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, which means this is their homologation weight now in historic racing. To help try and achieve that weight the FIA allowed the cars to be fitted with fibreglass or alloy front fenders, hood, boot lid, and doors. Plus bumpers, I think? I don't think anyone has ever got a Falcon Sprint down to that weight, but given they share the same mechanicals as a Mustang, and are significantly lighter, are formidable in the popular pre-1966 Group 2 Historic Touring Car category throughout the UK and Europe.

Thanks very much Guys for the positive replies.
Very nice Futura in Napier! I have some spares if you need help with anything.
If my car comes up as nice as Julian Balme's car I will be stoked... workin on it.
Correct, the FIA was for steel or aluminium bumpers. I think 980kg is wishful thinking for me, my last estimate was 1160kg
I heard of an EH Holden that was around 980kg
Cheers

So with all of the welding completed, its hammer and dolly time to go over each panel at a time and old school style, panel beat out and dents and low spots, the secret is not to bash to hard or too long or the metal will stretch. Its a bit of an art working metal, the good thing about this era of car the steel is not medium/high tensile so its relatively easy to work. After all that I called Warren at Metal Immersions Ltd and he is an absolute expert in acid dipping cars or any metal for that fact. He also has done some metal blasting and powder coating for me. The car came out fantastic thanks to Warren.

What a difference having nice clean steel to work with. It was off to the paint shop for Polyurethane epoxy etch primer.

Thanks very much Guys for the positive replies.
Very nice Futura in Napier! I have some spares if you need help with anything.
If my car comes up as nice as Julian Balme's car I will be stoked... workin on it.
Correct, the FIA was for steel or aluminium bumpers. I think 980kg is wishful thinking for me, my last estimate was 1160kg
I heard of an EH Holden the was around 980kg
Cheers

Paul B, great to see, those mid 60's Falcons were great and restoring another one, excellent, Gentleman Jim Richards runs one here in Australia in the Historic Muscle Cars series.
Keep up the good work !

The big thing about dipping a car is getting inside all of the sub frames coated. So I made a small tube sprayer and ran it inside every sub frame A pillar and C pillar etc.and zinc painted inside the lot, makes a mess but did the job.
So the old girl came back from the paint shop and so it prepping for paint now. The next stop is the scaffolding shop for a roll cage.

There was one more small rust hole in the boot floor to repair

Welded up 50 years of holes drilled in the floors - the OEM original holes were left

Thanks Bruce, good advice, its easy to forget those things.
I will be fitting the all the seats, door armrests etc, hood bows, front screen trim and sun visors. Just to make sure. Here is a look at the revised draft plan for the scaffolding:

Your roll cage will need to be built to MSNZ regulations and you are best to use a recommended cage builder who is conversant with these requirements.
What is used overseas does not nessesary meet these requirements.
If in doubt give one of the Technical guys at MSNZ a call.

Thanks Guys, for sure that is happening, Have been taking good advise from all and many including MSNZ, I appreciate the help from all. . The FIA Seamless steel tube is not readily available in NZ . So it will be a MSNZ cage. But I am going to build a bolt in cage.
Once I finalise the design plan I will take it in to MSNZ for approval prior to the build.
I think the phrase here will be "measure twice and cut once"
Cheers
Paul

So I started rebuilding the seats, when the car was in the paint shop.The front buckets were absolutely gone, the usual broken springs, perished foam squabs, rotten hessian etc. broken seat slider mounts.
This is fairly typical of what you will see with the moulded foam squab when rebuilding seat, usually the seat base goes first and the back a bit later, new foam is now being remanufactured. Start by removing all side bolts and take the back off the base. Remove all the hog rings under the base (don't forget the hog rings that hold the piping down about 100mm on 3 sides) then remove the upholstery and foam.

Once you remove the foam, you will see the hessian (rotten) with 0.9mm spring wire at 25mm widths attached. These need rebuilding.

Next the broken springs will need replacing, frames repaired and welding any broken parts of the frame or spring retaining outers, with spring wire repairs, try to forge the weld with a hammer & dolly while its bright red hot and this will work much better with the spring wire... not ideal. the zig zag springs are best to replace, new ones they can be hand made at some companies.

It is important to realign the springs. assemble the frame after its stripped, and check the distance on the seat frame sides with the back lower hinge arms when the back is pushed forward. There should be clearance of about 15mm on each side.

Then clean, de-rust, and repaint the frames, and start reassembling in the order it came off, using new hog rings and hog ring pliers. the black hessian has been replaced with new 0.9mm spring wire, hog ring this into place, then put new felt around the same areas it came off, using the old stuff as patterns.
Mark the centre of the frame, foam squab & new upholstery front to back, Place the new foam squab on top of this, and fix centred into place.
Then centre the upholstery, the really hard part is re hog ringing the seat centre piping down on to the steel spring steel. The pull the covers over, check the centre and hog ring into place

I did the fitting of the engine bay, Oil cooler and remote AC oil filter, It was very hard to find the right oil cooler and the fit was tight but it ended up fine. I needed to make a bracket, that also acts as reinforcing and then cut the square cooling hole for the oil cooler. Originally the hole had a grating screwed on the front to protect the cooler from debris which was painted black so I made that also.
I am also looking for a left side top inlet, right side lower outlet Griffin radiator.

The twin 4 barrel manifold and carter carbs (2 x 500cfm!) were also difficult to get and expensive, but a must have. I personally think these engines were over carbed and would perform better with around 750cfm. They are easy to re-jet and good Jet kits are available.